APPENDIX 1

FRAMEWORKS OF CHANGE

They represent a grid that allows the educational institutions to regard change from various perspectives. These frameworks are not answers, they represent an instrument that helps the staff to clarify any questions related to the changes they are face with.

• The purpose framework refers to the meaning attached by people to an effort made in order to promote change. It involves investigating the purpose of that change and its sources and formulates the essential question, namely if for students change implies a positive modification.
  
  
• The structural framework refers to time and space, to roles and responsibilities – the way in which people are held together or apart. The cultures do not exist in void; they are built on temporal and spatial structures and it is these structures that shape the relations.
  
  
• The cultural framework refers to the relationships established within an educational institution and to the way in which various cultures influence their problem-solving capacity. This framework makes the institutions to analyze the content and the form of their specific cultures.
  
  
• The emotional framework refers to feelings – to understanding the others, to create an environment that generates positive emotions and to know how to cope with or to avoid negative emotions. Teaching and learning are activities with a high emotional content.
  
  
• The political framework refers to power and the way in which power is distributed within the institution. Power can be found all over the educational spectrum. Teachers exert power over students, administrators exert their power over teachers and the smartest teacher knows how to manipulate, how to “hobnob” with the administrators. Politics mean gaining and using power and influence. In the worst-case scenario, the micro-political environments can cause an institution to become dysfunctional. In the best-case scenario, they can interact in a positive manner in order to help the evolution and development of the organization.
  
  
• Leadership framework refers both to the formal and informal leaders, to the way in which they facilitate the organizational development, the teaching – learning process and also the institutional relationships that promote the organizational learning.